by Ann Scott

Created on: July 19, 2008

The 15th of November, 1960, dawned cloudy and unseasonable warm. The muggy warmth, the rolling clouds, and the rainy , unsettled, atmosphere brought with them the threat of foul weather. Little did I know that I was to go through the most frightening evening of my life.

After the family had eaten dinner, we all gathered in our living room to watch the six-o-clock news and weather. It was reported that there were severe weather conditions, and that a tornado had been spotted at Wister, Oklahoma traveling in an east-north-easterly direction. Quickly we left our house and drove about a quarter of a mile up a hill to my grandmother's and grandfather's house, to tell them about the storm warnings, and to be where we could go to the storm cellar if we needed to.

Dad drove our pick-up truck up to the edge of grandmother's porch, since my sister had injured her foot at school that day, and she had to hop on one foot. As we hurriedly got out of our truck to go into the house, I heard a most horrifying roar unlike anything I'd ever heard. I asked Mom what it was, and to keep from scaring us kids to death, she simply said it was the wind, knowing all the while what it was.

Quickly she and Daddy herded us on into the house, knowing that we wouldn't have time for all of us to get to the cellar. My grandmother had had some mini strokes and couldn't walk very well, and we couldn't go to the cellar and leave her and grandpa to ride it out alone. By the time we got into the house, there was the terrible roar of wind as it blew and banged the screen door back and forth. As the storm actually bore down on us, there was an unearthly screaming, like the very demons of Hell unleashed in all their fury. I remember sticking my fingers in my ears as tightly as I could and still not being able to shut out the awful screaming sound and the noise of roof boards being banged and torn loose. My sister, brother, Mother and I went into the kitchen and us kids got down on the floor under the dining room table. Looking up, we noticed that there was no ceiling and we realized that rain was coming in on us Through the glow of the lightning flashes, this was very eerie. It gave us the feeling of being very small and helpless.

The fury was over in just a few moments of time. It seemed that a great calm settled on us at last, and we began thanking God that our lives had been spared.

As soon as we could gather ourselves together, we packed ourselves into our old pick-up truck and went back home to see

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